Tribal Efforts Against Lead (TEAL) is a university-tribal partnership designed to: 1) decrease the prevalence of elevated blood lead levels, risk behaviors and associated beliefs in Native American children and/or their caregivers; and 2) increase the capacity of eight Tribes in northeastern Oklahoma to respond to a severe environmental lead problem. The intervention involved recruiting and training 39 natural helpers from the Native American community in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, who in turn, educated members of their social networks on strategies for minimizing lead exposure. Over the two year intervention period, the lay health advisors made almost 27,000 contacts and spent over 5,000 hours engaging in outreach activities. The evaluation was a quasi-experimental design with the Native American community as the intervention group and whites living in the same geographic area as the comparison community. Outcome evaluation data included venous blood samples from white and Native American children pre-(n=336) and post-intervention (n=387), along with caregiver interviews on knowledge, beliefs, norms and risk/preventive behaviors pre- and post-intervention. In addition, community leader surveys (n=200) and organizational network interviews (n=26) were conducted pre- and post-intervention to assess changes in community capacity to respond to the environmental lead problem. This presentation will describe the outcome evaluation results, including changes in blood lead levels, knowledge, beliefs, risk/preventive behaviors, and community capacity. It will also highlight issues related to evaluating community interventions in settings with unique environmental problems that make traditional evaluation designs difficult to implement.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, participations will be able to: 1)describe one approach to evaluating community interventions to prevent lead poisoning 2)identify at least two challenges in evaluating community-based environmental health interventions
Keywords: Lead, Community Health Advisor
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.